John Rapley - Foreign Focus PITY THE land that is too rich. Congo's civil war has, since 1998, claimed over 3 million lives. It has deep roots, but its proximate cause can be traced back to the 1994 Rwanda genocide.
In the wake of the genocide, the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) toppled the Rwandan government and chased the Hutu extremists who controlled Kigali into eastern Congo (then called Zaire). Once there, the Hutu militias intended to regroup to re-invade Rwanda. So the RPF, which became the Rwandan army, backed by the Ugandan army which had supported it, took the battle into eastern Zaire.
Once there, they linked up with local rebels fighting the government of the then-Zairean president Mobutu Sese Seko. One rebel army, led by an old fighter named Laurent Kabila, proved a particularly useful ally. This alliance was assisted in western Zaire by Angolan troops. Because Mobutu provided shelter to rebels then fighting the Angolan government, Angola had its own reasons to go after him.
In 1997, the rebels took Kinshasa and chased Mobutu into exile, where he died an ignominious death. Then, Kabila sought to emancipate himself from his Ugandan and Rwandan backers, demanding they leave Zaire. Instead, they set up camp in the east, and began sponsoring local militias. Kinshasa ended up patronising the Hutu militias being chased by Rwandan troops, seeing them as a useful ally in the war with Uganda and Rwanda.
Angola opted to stand by Kabila and turned on its erstwhile allies, Rwanda and Uganda. Zimbabwe and Namibia then entered the fray, rallying to the support of Kinshasa, apparently out of the personal convictions of their respective presidents (since neither country then had much at stake in Congo). As if that was not complicated enough, the Rwandan and Ugandan governments, close during the days the RPF was based in Uganda, fell out and turned on one another. Each then supported rival militias to counter-balance the other.
In effect, Congo became the battleground for a proxy war among African governments. But once the various competing armies and militias were established on the ground, Congo's vast mineral wealth drew them deeper in.
In addition to the geopolitical battles, various factions began fighting for turf, eager to enrich themselves from mining operations in the areas they controlled. Private adventurers and international criminals entered the fray, forging alliances with local commanders in return for a share of the spoils.
Kinshasa simply could not control the situation. The government is weak and oversees a sprawling country barely held together by a crumbling infrastructure. The Congolese army, deprived of the backing of the more professional Ugandan and Rwandan armies, is simply not up to the task of imposing the authority of the government led by Laurent Kabila's son Joseph after the former was assassinated in an apparent palace coup on outlying areas. It has thus been forced to fall back on alliances with local warlords, in return for ceding them control of their respective regions' wealth.
Kabila is hoping that a peace accord agreed last year in South Africa will end the fighting and re-establish the primacy of Kinshasa. The accord calls for the withdrawal of all foreign troops, the demobilisation of the militias and their subsequent integration into a reconstituted army. To satisfy the Rwandans, all Hutu extremists will be returned to Kigali to stand trial for genocide.
BUILDING CONFIDENCE
On paper, the accord looks good. Enforcing it is another matter. A French-led United Nations force has been dispatched to end the fighting in eastern Congo. However, its mandate runs out in September, when it will be replaced by a more lightly-armed Bangladeshi contingent. South Africa has contributed troops, but the force probably remains inadequate to the task of building confidence on all sides.
The problem is that the world's attention has been distracted by Iraq. Even those governments committed to a Congolese peace, like Britain and Belgium, have been slow to act. And South Africa, mindful no doubt of the way the Congolese venture has sunk some of Africa's best armies in a morass of corruption, understandably does not want to over-commit itself.
So Congo remains the playground of crooks and thieves. Pity the land that is too rich.
John Rapley is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona.
